Man saved up RM20 every day to buy iPhone for wife

I read here that this guy saved up RM20 (Ringgit Malaysia) every day for a year to buy his wife an Apple iPhone. I think that was a lovely thing for him to do as Apple iPhones are not cheap. But what is even better about this story is the concept of having savings. The guy said that instead of making a dent in his account, a much better way would be to save in that way. I must confess I do the same thing, except I do it with Singapore $1 coins. What I do is that every time I get any $1 coins, I will put it in a jam jar. When the jar is full, I give it to charity. I am not soliciting praise for doing so. I just want to give back to society and that is my way of doing so. In any case, as I said, that is a really good way of saving cash and one should do that.

Apple AirTag

I am seriously thinking of getting myself an Apple AirTag and hiding it on my Brompton folding bike. It is not to say that Bromptons get stolen all the time, give their awesome folding and portability. So as a tracker, it is pretty awesome. So how does it work? According to Apple:

Your AirTag sends out a secure Bluetooth signal that can be detected by nearby devices in the Find My network. These devices send the location of your AirTag to iCloud — then you can go to the Find My app and see it on a map. The whole process is anonymous and encrypted to protect your privacy.

But there is always a chance that it might. However, there might be some issues with the law if you use the AirTag to track someone without them knowing. I saw a couple of YouTube videos of people setting up an experiment of tracking stolen bikes with it. Then again, there may be drug syndicates that hide trackers in drug shipments and retrieve them in other countries. Despite all this, I still want to get one to put in my Brompton.

Apple Lightning to 3.5mm adapter with shrink-wrap

When I bought my Apple Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, I noticed that the cable was very fragile. I had seen enough pictures of people with their adapters with frayed wires. So I took a tip from a friend of mine who used shrink-wrap to wrap up his adapter, like how it is above. I did the same thing and I found it to be very effective. It stiffens the adapter and makes it sturdier. So there you go all…a hack worth doing!

Apple to buy Manchester United for 5.8 billion?

It was all over the news a few hours back. The rumour going around was that Apple might be considering to buy Manchester United for 5.8 billion dollars. This happened after the Glazers announced that they were willing to sell the club. They are just rumours so there is nothing concrete yet. Let us see how it pans out.

eSIM or Embedded SIM

When my wife and I go travelling, we always like to use the SIM cards from ICC as they are easily available and relatively inexpensive. However, Apple has been selling the concept of an embedded SIM card aka known as eSIM. That is the next generation of SIM card technology but sadly, not all phones support it. My Redmi Note 11 certainly does not and it is a shame. In a nutshell, unlike the traditional SIM card that has to be inserted into a device like a phone or 3G/4G router, an eSIM comes, as the name suggests, pre-embedded into your device as a tiny chip or module. This module can be written onto with the necessary information and be used just like a traditional SIM. Since the eSIM module is prebuilt into the device it cannot be removed or switched between devices. That will save us a lot as far as landfill is concerned and there are many providers providing this. Looks like if I want to use an eSIM, I need to use my Apple iPhone 2020!

Apple M1 MacBook Pro

I have been thinking of getting a new Apple M1 MacBook Pro to replace my old 2013 Retina MacBook Pro. First of all, I need to say that there is nothing wrong with my old MacBook Pro. I use it for DJ’ing and only DJ’ing. It does the job well because I take very, very good care of it. It is just that it is getting on in age and I do need to make sure that there are no hiccups. There will come a time when the parts on this current MacBook Pro of mine will wear down and I will not be able to use it anymore. The refurbished M1 MacBook Pros with 8Gb of RAM and a 512Gb hard drive can be bought for about $1,700. That is pretty affordable by Apple terms.

Tracking an Apple AirTag

This chap in the Netherlands did something which I have always wanted to do i.e. send something that can be tracked and see how the journey went. Apple AirTags are the best thing to do something like that. Now. What are Apple AirTags? Well, Apple’s AirTag item trackers are designed to let users track their everyday possessions, such as keys, wallets, backpacks, and so on. AirTags‌ can be tracked by their owners in Apple’s ‌Find My app‌, which uses Bluetooth and other Apple devices to locate them. I think that something like this is pretty cool and I think that AirTags are one of Apple’s best inventions to date. Since I have an iPhone SE, maybe I might just do that…buy myself some Apple AirTags and put them in stuff that need tracking

Apple lightning headphone jack

When I bought my iPhone SE 2020, it did not come with a headphone jack. That was just as well as a headphone jack would cause havoc with its Ingress Protection (IP) settings. Many have gotten the Apple AirPods but there is another alternative – Apple’s lightning to headphone jack adapter. I would go for that as it is cheaper than the AirPods and it allows you to use your own headphones. In any case, it costs about $15 here in Singapore. Looks like I will be getting one of these.

Fake Apple iPad USB charger

I was rather pissed off when a client of mine called me up a couple of days back and said that the iPads that came with USB chargers that were fake. He said that they did not look anything like the original. So I went down to his office and checked them out. Sure enough…they were copies…and very good ones at that. Check out the picture above. The genuine Apple USB charger has a font colour that is a lighter shade than this one. I have to admit that this totally fooled me when I saw it at my client’s place. Looks like my procurement and sales are going to get a very stiff talking-to when I meet up with them. I This is totally unacceptable.

Another thing guys and gals. Some of the earlier iPad USB chargers do not have the Apple logo on them. So be careful and make sure that you buy USB chargers from reputable dealers. Do not use fake power adapters. They will spoil your equipment and are a fire hazard.

Finally bought the iPhone SE 2020

I bought the Apple iPhone SE 2020 a couple of days back for slightly over $600. I bought it on Apple’s website and had it sent to my home. When I got back from work, I managed to set it up with no issues at all. Unfortunately, I could not transfer my old WhatsApp databases over. Luckily, I still had my contacts on the SIM card and when I transferred that over, it worked fine. Looks like I have to go into my Google account and physically re-create some of the names that I put in Google contacts.

Do I like it? Well, I kind of like it but I am more familiar with Android. I found myself making the old Android shortcuts like “pulling” the screen down and trying to check the wifi. It does not work that way unfortunately. What I am going to do is to try to test out the Apple TV app and see if I can stream videos there. One thing I love about it is its small size and it’s weatherproof and dust-proof design. Let’s see how it goes as time goes by.